


fill my lungs with sweetness

by hydrospanners



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Viios
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-10-28 04:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 8,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17780180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrospanners/pseuds/hydrospanners
Summary: when you love someone, let them know. (vignettes about the ways doc shows his tiny jedi wife he loves her.)





	1. daffodils

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hoiist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoiist/gifts).



> please enjoy fourteen vignettes (because of february 14th hur hur) about the ways doc loves his tiny jedi wife [viios](http://hoiist.tumblr.com/tagged/ch:%20viios), written as a valentine's day gift for [hoiist](http://hoiist.tumblr.com/)! i hope i do your girl justice!!

There’s something about the way she blushes. The way she does it with her whole body, how her posture opens and her brow lifts and her eye seems to glow that little bit brighter. The way the color spreads across her cheeks and those full lips of hers part for him, just barely. Just a tease of teeth and tongue and possibility.

 

Vii never just blushes. She _blooms_.

 

And maybe it’s the novelty of it, the refreshing openness of her, but Doc is captivated. He can’t help searching for ways to draw her out and make her blossom.

 

She never makes him work too hard for it, either. Vii’s always happy to be appreciated and, much as he loves a challenge, it’s kind of nice to lay all his charm at the feet of someone who unabashedly enjoys it. He hasn’t had that for a while. Not since Pr--Well. Not for a while.

 

He can feel his smile turning a little stupid as he looks at her, can feel it getting a little too sincere, and this time he just lets it happen. Vii is watching him watch her, her head canted in that way she has, a million questions tied up in three degrees of movement. He doesn’t let this smile loose often, but from the way it’s got the color rising in her cheeks, he thinks he might just have to change that. It’s too pretty a sight to resist; too pretty a feeling to know that _he_ made it happen.

 

Vii doesn’t bloom for just anyone.

 

The silence stretches between them, warm and gooey, for a long, breathless moment before her curiosity gets the better of her. “What is it?” She asks, and there’s a quirk to her lips that tells him she already suspects the answer but wants to hear it anyway. For all the blushing and swooning (if tripping into his arms sometimes counts as swooning), Vii isn’t exactly shy about enjoying his particular brand of attention. He thinks she tries to be sometimes, for the sake of some Jedi propriety or something, but it isn’t in her nature to shrink from anything.

 

There’s a spine of steel under that tender, open heart.

 

“Just admiring the view,” he finally says, eyes fixed firmly on the little Jedi in front of him.

 

Vii _blooms_.


	2. gardenias

_You_ , Doc reminds himself, _are a professional_.

 

It’s not like he hasn’t had attractive patients before. He’s had the privilege of stitching, wrapping, injecting and otherwise laying his hands upon some of the finest anatomy the galaxy has seen fit to produce, and he’s done it all without so much as a single wandering look. Blinding the man so the doctor can see usually comes to him pretty easy. Because, he reminds himself again, _he is a professional_.

 

And yet here he is, prodding at a blaster burn a little too close to circuitry for comfort, having to remind himself to not let his eyes roam any farther down the dark expanse of Vii’s back. Vii’s lean, muscular back.

 

He isn’t exactly surprised by the curves and edges usually concealed by her robes. She’s a starsdamned Jedi and a certified, pint-sized badass. He’s seen her and her laser swords in action. He knows there’s power in her body and he knows it has to be packed pretty densely to fit into such a small space. It’s just easy to forget about when it’s hidden away under all that flowing orange fabric.

 

Only it’s not hidden away right now.

 

“Everything okay, Doc?” Vii’s voice is soft and sweet as nectar, completely unsuspecting because why shouldn’t it be? She _trusts_ him.

 

Guilt bubbles in his chest, thick and black as tar. _You are a professional_.

 

His eyes suddenly find it very easy to stay focused on the burn and the ointment he is gently massaging into its ragged edges. “It’s about to be, Gorgeous. How’s that feel?”

 

Vii hums a pleased little hum, nodding her satisfaction. He can’t see her face and he doesn’t have the Force to help him, but he’s pretty sure he can feel her smiling anyway.

 

“Then everything’s okay. Be even better if you’d stop running directly into blaster fire.” He hands her the robe from the back of the chair and makes a show of keeping his back turned, trying to focus on cleaning his tools and not the heat of her skin or the shape of all the musculature being covered up behind him. Trying to not think how nice it would be to run his tongue—

 

_Dammit_.

 

Doc swallows, and makes a desperate decision to run his mouth just to slow down his treacherous brain. “You know you don’t have to keep getting yourself hurt to spend time with me, Vii. You can just ask. Ol’ Doc always enjoys the company of a beautiful woman.”

 

“Oh,” she says, and her voice is closer than he expects. The rustle of fabric has stopped, so he figures it’s safe to look again.

 

But it isn’t. It isn’t safe at all.

 

Vii is standing there, close enough to touch, blushing that pretty blush of hers and smiling that secret smile, the corners of her mouth quirked as she tugs her lip between her teeth, her eyes dancing this way and that, fingers tugging at the edges of her hood. Her nervous energy buzzes around her like a bee around a flower and she finally gives in to it, hiding the smile she can’t resist in the fabric of her robes as she meets his gaze.

 

Doc thinks his heart might be in danger of stopping. It has to be against the law somewhere, to be this cute and this far out of reach all at the same time.

 

She’s looking straight in his eyes, courageous as always, and says, “I’ll have to take you up on that.” From the way her perfectly rosy cheeks swell over the edge of her robes, he thinks her smile must be growing. He’s pretty sure his heart is. And if she keeps looking at him like that, like he’s the only flower in a field of weeds, it might not be the only part of him that grows.

 

(His ego. He means _his ego_.)

 

His voice is hoarse when he says, “I’ll look forward to it, Gorgeous.”


	3. roses

His fingers trail featherlight along the curve of her waist, tracing the gentle crest of her hip and the firm slope of her thigh. Vii shivers beneath his touch, her skin feverish with want, but she is patient in her pleasure. She savors every sensation he can give—

 

Vii gasps, and Doc hits the floor with an unceremonious thud.

 

Before he can so much as swear, Vii is tearing the sheets now wrapped around his limbs out from under him, frantically tugging them up to cover her nudity. His eyes cross as he blinks up at her, realizing in some distant part of his brain that he’s bounced his head off the bed frame, and she looks back at him with panic written all over her face. 

 

The door hisses open.

 

“Hey Boss, I found that--” Kira’s voice cuts the quiet like a knife, and suddenly it all makes sense. There’s a pregnant pause as she stops to take in the scene, holocandles flickering around the room, a layer of the closest thing to rose petals you can get out on the Rim scattered over everything… Lying bare-assed on the floor, Doc can’t see Kira’s knowing smirk, but he can sure as hell hear it. “Am I interrupting something?”

 

Vii tugs the bedsheets clear to her chin, ducking as much of her face as she can behind the fabric. “No!” She says, her high and nearly tight enough to squeak. “No. I was just—“ her eyes shift around until they spot the lube on the nightstand. She grabs it, conveniently turning the bottle so Kira can’t read the label, and starts gesturing to her elbow. “I was just putting on some lotion,” she explains, waving aforementioned elbow in the air, and while Doc has to agree it’s among the least ashy elbows he’s ever seen, he really hopes the fate of the galaxy never comes down to Vii winning a game of sabacc. He’s met Gamorreans with fewer tells.

 

He wants to make a joke about it; wants to laugh the whole thing off. And if it was anyone else, if it was any other bed he was being shoved under, he would. But it isn’t anyone else. It isn’t any other bed. It’s Vii. And she’s looking anywhere but at him with this earnest desperation he can’t help wanting to soothe away, whatever it takes.

 

It might be the worst kept secret this side of the Perlemian, but the secrecy matters to her. The Jedi stuff matters to her. And that means it matters to him, because  _ Vii _ matters to him.

 

It’s the one thing he and Kira share.

 

Junior heaves the world’s weariest sigh, the strain of not rolling her eyes almost audible. “Lotion,” she says. “Sure. I’ll just… let you get back to that, then.” There’s a rustle of robes as Kira steps out, but the door doesn’t close. The silence takes on a strange quality as Vii watches her, waiting.

 

Kira clears her throat. “I’m glad you’re doing something nice for yourself, Boss,” she says, and she sounds sincere, even if the sincerity is costing her. “You deserve it.”


	4. pink carnations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning for some mildly disturbing canon-typical imagery

It’s supposed to be a smash and grab. Supposed to be simple.

 

They’re gangsters, after all. Vicious, greedy, and cruel. Knowing what they know about these people, knowing what they did to the last Jedi who came here, Doc doubts if even Vii will feel bad about breaking a few faces to get what they’re after.

 

Trouble is, they haven’t found a single face to break yet. No guards at the door, no patrols in the corridors, no thugs rushing out of the fresher with their pants around their ankles for the chance to light up whatever idiots just waltzed into their compound. It’s quiet and it’s still and Doc may not have the Force, but he does have a deep well of experience with fucked up banthashit that’s giving him a bad feeling about this.

 

They find the bodies in the mess hall. Stacked two or three high, laid out on cots and stretchers and benches and tables, with the freshest corpses piled carelessly on the floor.

 

Doc knows sickness when he smells it, and this place reeks.

 

“You Jedi don’t need to breathe, right?” It’s too early to tell if this thing is airborne and probably too late to prevent contact if it is, but Doc slips on his rebreather anyway and tries not to think about the weight in the pit of his stomach. They came here for a reason, a fate-of-the-galaxy kind of reason, but—Well, it isn’t the first time his job has gotten him in trouble. He hopes it won’t be the last.

 

Before he can open his mouth to shoot himself in the foot, though, Vii’s hand is on his shoulder and her eye is boring into his, glowing with a kind of intensity he hasn’t seen before. “Do you know what happened to them?” She asks.

 

Doc’s eyes dance across the bodies, a million ideas racing through his mind, and shakes his head. “Not yet.” He emphasizes that word. _Yet_.

 

Because there are people still alive in this place. The bodies would be lying untended in the corridors if there weren’t. Doc knows what it looks like when the medic is too late and he knows this isn’t it. There are lives left to save here and he can save them if he’s fast. If he’s clever and focused and doesn’t waste time looking around for a cipher that needs to be found before the codes expire and the galaxy is doomed to be an evil Sith wizard’s dinner.

 

This was supposed to be so _simple_.

 

Doc looks into Vii’s face, sees the pain in her frown and the determination in the her slanted brow, and prepares himself for disappointment. She’s a Jedi, afterall. She has her duty and he has his and he supposes this was always going to happen; it’s just that he wasn’t ready for it to happen _now_.

 

“I’m going to find the survivors,” he says.

 

Vii’s eye darts to the wall, to the drab robes hanging at the head of the room, tattered and stained with old blood, darts to the battered lightsaber displayed beside it, and she shakes her head. “Not alone,” she says.

 

“Boss,” Kira’s voice is hesitant, her expression queasy and unsure. “The cipher—“

 

Vii draws her shoulders up, and it’s funny how a woman as small as her can look tall as any mountain. It makes something swell in his chest, something proud and wanting and extremely fucking dangerous. Something that sounds a lot like it’s chanting ‘ _mine_ ’.

 

“We can do it if we’re fast,” she says. Then she looks at him, and something in her expression goes just a little bit soft. “Good thing we have the best doctor in the galaxy with us.”

 

The timer is running, so he doesn’t have time to think about the way her cheeks turn red when she meets his eyes or the way he’s starting to find things like trust and confidence unbearably erotic. He doesn’t have time to kiss her like he wants to, until she forgets her own name and possibly all powers of speech.

  
But _later_. Later, Doc is going to give her his admiration and his gratitude until she’s too spent to even stand.


	5. jonquils

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's sex stuff in this one lads

Her fingers curl around air, hovering just over his hip, close enough that he can feel the whisper of heat from her skin. She’s reaching again, always reaching and reaching and reaching, but she never seems to take hold.

 

Doc presses another open-mouthed kiss to the corner of her chin, to the place where hot flesh meets cool metal, and runs his tongue along the smooth seam of her implant. Vii gasps for him, the sweetest little sound, a shiver of pleasure rushing down her spine. He smiles against her skin, kissing his way along the soft curve of her jaw until he’s tugging her very ticklish earlobe between his teeth while she giggles. Her laughter is every bit as sweet as her sigh.

 

Vii half-heartedly tugs her sensitive ear from his mouth, and Doc pulls away just enough to drink her in, to savor the sight of her hair fanned out beneath her like a halo as she smiles up at him. Her hand is still hovering there between them, frozen in promise unfulfilled.

 

Doc wraps her fingers in his, massaging the tips of them with his thumb as he searches her scarred smile for answers. Another man might start to doubt himself. Might question if she really wants him after all.

 

Doc knows better. He might not have the Force, but he has eyes and he has ears and shy as Vii is about her reaching, she’s never shy about enjoying his. This isn’t about a lack of wanting.

 

He brings her hand to his lips, brushing a kiss across her knuckles. “Gorgeous,” he murmurs, and her eye flutters as she bites her lip, smile turning a little hazy, a little drunk. “You know I love finding new ways to make you sing,” he says, “but Ol’ Doc’s starting to worry he’s being selfish.”

 

“What?” Vii seems genuinely surprised, and it really is unfair how adorable surprise is on her. It’s even more unfair how sexy she can make adorable look, spread out on the bed beneath him, all naked and pliant and warm. How is a man supposed to concentrate with a woman like this waiting for him to touch her? _Stars_. Doc isn’t sure what he did to deserve this kind of injustice, but he swears to every god he’s ever heard of that he’ll keep doing it.

 

He swallows the lump in his throat, fighting back the urge to kiss his way down her arm and across her clavicle and down her breasts and—Doc swears under his breath, dragging his eyes back to Vii’s open, curious face. “You know you don’t have to always go along with what I want, right?” When she doesn’t answer, he draws her hand back to the jut of his hip, to the place she’s been reaching for but never quite touching, and lays both their hands against his skin. He smiles, a little smug at the way she sighs, and runs their joined hands along his thigh. The feeling of her fingers brushing his skin, closer and closer to the place he wants them, stokes the aching fire inside him, and he lets her feel that too. “You’re allowed to want things too,” he says.

 

Vii whines for him, high and needy, her hips rolling against his in answer. It’s a good answer, but not the one he’s looking for.

 

“Tell me what you want, Vii.”

 

“I want--” and she hesitates again, glancing sidelong at the robes piled on the floor. Her jaw clenches tight, lips twisting into a frown he recognizes instantly. A frown that has no place on a woman like Vii.

 

 _More tells than a Gamorrean_ , Doc thinks.

 

“Vii.” He cups her face with his other hand, brushing his thumb along the gentle swell of her cheek. “You’re allowed to _want_ , Gorgeous. It isn’t greedy or dangerous or wrong.” Doc isn’t sure what exactly the Jedi have told her about this, but he knows they have rules about it. He knows they have _views_ and he knows that matters to her.

 

He knows that if they ever let him set foot on Tython, he’s going to have lots of shins to kick.

 

Vii’s eye flutters shut, and he knows this expression too. He can watch the course of her patience as she draws it up from that neverending well deep inside of her, from that well without end. He can watch as the understanding and gentleness and warmth take root in her lungs and blossom on her lips. “It’s wrong for a Jedi,” she explains, and he can’t help noticing how easy it is for her to stroke his thigh now. Can’t help noticing how easily she touches him when it’s to offer comfort.

 

She’s so free with these casual affections; it’s just her desire that gives her pause.

 

Doc wonders if maybe he should kick more than just shins.

 

“I don’t know much about being a Jedi,” he says, “but I know about biology, Gorgeous, and that’s all this is.” He leans forward, peppering her jaw with little kisses. “You shouldn’t be ashamed of the way your body’s made.”

 

Vii’s breath hitches, and he can feel her fingers digging in to the meat of his thigh. It feels like a victory.

 

He goes on. “You can’t help wanting this any more than you can help wanting food or air. And I know you don’t feel guilty about that.” Vii has the kind of enthusiasm for certain foods, usually sweet ones, that will keep a man awake at night. Just another of her many crimes.

 

“It’s not that I mind being your guilty pleasure.” Doc kisses his way down the column of her throat, murmuring his words between touches. “I just don’t like the idea of you feeling guilty for wanting pleasure. And I really don’t like the idea that I might not be pleasing you like you deserve cause you’re ashamed of asking for what you want.” He presses a lingering, open-mouthed kiss to the valley at the base of her throat, suckling at the delicate skin, savoring the feel of her fluttering pulse beneath his lips.

 

“Doc.” Vii sighs his name so beautifully.

 

He presses his hips into hers again, drawing an aching little whine from Vii’s swollen lips as he nips at her collarbone. He releases his grip on her hand to trail his fingers down her belly, to brush at the the crease of her thigh, just a whisper away from the heat of her center. “Tell me what you want, Gorgeous.”

 

And Vii’s hands are on his face, drawing it back, up to where she can look him in the eyes. Up to where he can see her flushed cheeks and a deep, smoldering passion in the steady glow of her eye. Where he can see the steely determination and the certainty he knows is in her heart.

 

“I want _you_ ,” she says.

 

So that’s what Doc gives her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it was mentioned one time in an ask that vii's guilty pleasure is sex because jedi aren't supposed to have it and my goblin brain went: you know what's romantic????? having a difficult and honest conversation about your preferences and your hang ups so you can feel safe and comfortable with your lover. i'm sorry but this is just who i am everyone. i try to write fluff and smut and this stuff just happens.


	6. azaleas

“Is there a magnet in this thing?” Doc has disassembled and reassembled the whole system enough times to know there isn’t, but he’s starting to wonder anyway. Statistically speaking, the number of direct hits Vii takes in her back, in the vulnerable joints between moving cybernetic parts specifically, moved past merely improbable and into actually impossible territory weeks ago.

 

Vii smiles a small, trembling smile in apology. She’s lost too much blood to be exposed to this cold, so Doc keeps his eyes on her fucked up back and saves his thoughts about her alarming predisposition for self-sacrifice for later. His thoughts about how much heart-stopping fear her self-sacrifice is starting to cause him can wait until never.

 

It’s a rush job, disentangling ruined wires from ruined nerves, but the mess is nothing he can’t sort later, in a proper medbay with proper heating and proper supplies. Right now he just needs to get the damned thing out before the power supply bl—With a sizzling spark, the little box finally pulls free. Vii tries to bite back a hiss, but he can feel the quick rush of air in her lungs and the way her muscles tense. He knows it hurt.

 

“Sorry, Gorgeous.” He tosses the piece aside with a bitter look and a little more force than is strictly necessary. “It’ll feel better in a second. Doc’s gonna take good care of you.”

 

She looks at him over her shoulder, eyelash fluttering against a cheek flushed with cold, and if he wasn’t such a starsdamned professional he would kiss her for looking at him like that. No one flirting with hypothermia and exsanguination has any right to be that sexy, but it’s not the first crime Vii’s committed against his heart and, as her chapped, bloodied lips melt into one of those tender smiles of hers, he’s certain it won’t be the last.

 

“I know,” Vii says, like she’s never been more sure of anything.

 

And Doc is sure too. He knows he’s good. He knows it like he knows that stars are fucking hot and Corellians always cheat at cards. He knows it in his bones; knows it better than he knows his own name. He doesn’t need to be told he’s good. He doesn’t really need to be believed in.

 

But damn if it doesn’t feel good when it’s coming from Vii. Damn if he isn’t falling in love with the way this tiny woman who could probably stop a naval battle with a wag of her finger is looking at him with absolute, unshakeable faith.

 

He gives her what little kolto he has, knowing it won’t be enough, and ties her shredded robes tight across her wounds. Her coat is soaked through with blood and riddled with burns, so Doc shrugs out of his, wrapping it around her vulnerable back. When she opens her mouth to argue, he silences her with a kiss.

 

“We’ve gotta get you heated up,” he says, only grinning a little. He swings around to her front, leaning in close and running his hands across the uninjured parts of her arms. “It’ll just be for a few minutes.”

 

Vii laughs, and he looks up to find an impish smile and a flicker of heat in her eye.  “A few minutes? You can do better than that.”

 

_Damn_.

 

“More than one way to skin a wampa, I guess,” he laughs, and Vii shuffles closer, freezing little fingers darting out of the cocoon he surrounded her in to slip beneath the hem of his shirt. It’s funny how a thing can feel burning hot and icy cold all at the same time. “The treatment can be a little rigorous, but if you think you’re up to it, Gorgeous, I know just the doctor to take care of you.”

  
And it might not his _best_ line, but it gets him a delighted little laugh and a searing, hungry kiss, so it’s probably not his worst either.


	7. forsythias

Doc rounds the corner, his purchase secure inside his jacket, and walks straight into the steel-melting heat of Kira’s glare. Or maybe that’s just the extra sun. Hard to tell on Tatooine.

 

She rolls her eyes at his self-satisfied smile. “Done shopping, Your Highness? Think we have time to save some lives before your appointment at the spa?”

 

Doc just laughs, patting the swell of his breast pocket. “People expect a dashing hero when they’re being saved, Junior. I’d hate to disappoint.”

 

“No one cares how smooth your mustache is when they’re bleeding out,” Kira says. “Ugh. Let’s just go.”

 

Vii is waiting for them by the speeder, chatting away with--and he doesn’t know why he keeps being surprised by these things--an apparently good-natured Gamorrean. They’re at least three times her size and more heavily armored than a battle cruiser, but they seem to be actually smiling. Doc remembers learning that smiling is technically possible for Gamorreans back in medical school, but he never thought he’d see it happen with his own eyes.

 

Beside him, Kira tenses. Her fingers start inching toward that laser sword of hers, always ready to leap headlong to the worst possible conclusion, but Doc clears his throat, shaking his head just a little. She frowns at him, charmingly suspicious as ever, but lets her hand fall. She isn’t normally so inclined to follow his lead, but Kira trusts him where Vii’s well-being is concerned.

 

(And he isn’t sure how he feels about everyone knowing just how vitally important Vii’s well-being is to him, but if it helps keep her safe he isn’t sure it matters.)

 

Doc ambles forward slowly, casual and nonthreatening, careful to keep both his hands clearly visible and clearly not reaching for the blaster at his hip. “Making friends?” He calls out, and the Gamorrean’s smile fades into the kind of slow-moving suspicion you expect to find on a Gamorrean’s face.

 

Vii doesn’t seem to notice. Her smile only brightens when she catches sight of him, the kind of smile that could blind a man if he looked at it too long. “Gorzzak was just telling me about some problem spots in the canyons,” she says, her voice light and musical and utterly without irony. “Nice of them, isn’t it?”

 

And that’s the thing Doc still can’t believe, no matter how many times he sees it. It really _is_ nice. Gorzzak is over there pointing out all their usual ambush spots just out of the kindness the probably didn’t even know was in their heart. Just because Vii smiled at them, because she talked to them like they were a decent person and somehow, that’s enough to make them want to _be_ a decent person.

 

And she does it without even trying. Most of the time, he suspects, without even knowing she’s done it.

 

Doc coughs, his throat suddenly feeling very thick. Probably from all the sand. “It’s very nice,” he agrees, glancing at the scowling Gamorrean from the corner of his eye. “But I’ve got something even better.”

 

"How is your mustache wax a gift for—" Kira starts, but trails off when she catches sight of his eager grin. Her face screws up in an expression he’s starting to think she saves just for him. “Disgusting,” she mutters, her voice low enough that Vii won’t hear. For all her faults, Kira loves Vii too much to steal away the comforting illusion that she and Doc are keeping their secret dalliances an actual secret.

 

Doc reaches for his breast pocket with as much teasing theatricality as he can get away with on the shoestring patience of a Gamorrean, and Vii eats it up. She watches him with such open anticipation, almost vibrating with curiosity, her teeth digging into her lip as she smiles, perfectly prepared to be delighted with him.

 

It can be addicting, being liked by her. Doc tries to just savor the sweetness of her attention and not think too hard about how good it feels or how much more of it he wants. Thinking will only spoil it.

 

He reveals the little flask of oil with a flourish and a smile. Kira would call it a smirk, but who can think of Kira when Vii is looking at them like they’ve just hung the stars in the sky?

 

“It’s the good stuff,” he explains, more than a little smug. “Imported from Corellia. I’ve only been once, but it took me a month to wash all the grease off so I figure they know their stuff. And with all this sand around, well I thought you might appreciate some… lubrication.”

 

He emphasizes that lost word mostly for Kira’s benefit, and the revolted sound she makes does not disappoint. Neither does the adorable way Vii is trying to hide her blush with her hood.

 

Maybe he’s a bad man for loving how cute she is when she gets embarrassed about these things, but he can’t seem to help himself where she’s concerned, so he goes on, “Consider this doctor on call, Gorgeous. Whenever you’re ready to get lubed up, you just let me know.”

 

(Later he’ll find a bruise shaped like Kira’s fist on his arm, but it will be hard to regret it when Vii starts kissing it better.)


	8. hyacinths

The door opens with a hiss, stirring a cloud of powder blue and lilac blossoms into a storm. Vii stands frozen at the threshold, light from the corridor pouring in around her like some kind of halo.  Doc suspects there’s poetry in the sight, but he always suspects poetry where Vii is concerned. She has that effect on people.

 

The blossoms settle and she looks around the room in open-mouthed wonder, her glowing eye wide as she takes it all in. Every flower in every vase. Every flat surface covered in blue and purple petals, the air sweet with the scent of it.

 

“Evening, Gorgeous.”

 

Doc steps forward, an elaborate bouquet of hyacinths in hand. The subtle sheen of his suit, silvery grey and elegantly cut, catches the flickering glow of the holocandles in just the right way, leaving him damn near shimmering in the dim light. He smiles his most winning smile and hopes it’s all enough. Or a start, at least.

 

Vii drops the chipboards she had tucked under her arms. “Doc?”

 

“Surprise.”

 

“I thought you were—How did you—“ He can see every question she has playing out across her face, already red-cheeked and torn between amazement and confusion. She’s always so open, so expressive. _Stars_. “What is all this?”

 

Doc swallows. “An apology.”

 

She doesn’t have to ask what for.

 

“What I said—“

 

“Hey.” Vii is suddenly there, right in front of him and smiling that tender smile, one hand twining with his around the bouquet and another pressing against his lips. “It’s okay.”

 

It really isn’t. “Listen, Beautiful—“

 

“No. You listen.” Her fingers slide from his lips, brushing along his smooth, freshly-shaved jaw and down the side of his throat. “I know what you meant. Maybe I should have said what I said differently. Maybe you should have too. But I—“ Vii’s gaze slips from his eyes, dropping to the safer territory of his shoulder as her bravado starts to wither. But Vii isn’t like him; she doesn’t need false confidence to be brave. Her resolve is stronger than her fear. “I just don’t want you to leave again.”

 

Something sharp and hot rises in his chest. Had he really not thought what that would look like? Did she really think that he would—

 

Yes. Of course she would. He had never given her any reason to think he wouldn’t, had he? That stupid thing about the wookiees…

 

 _Stars_.

 

Doc cups her cheek with his free hand, his thumb brushing the swell of her cheek as he tilts her head back, draws her eye back up to his. “Viios.” Her lips part, hope and expectation and fear racing across her face as she waits for him to go on. Waits for the words to unstick in his throat.

 

They don’t.

 

So he presses a kiss to her open mouth and hopes she can hear what he isn’t saying when he says, “You aren’t getting rid of me that easy, Gorgeous.”

 

  
  
  
  
  
  
( _I love you_. _I love you and I’m sorry.)_


	9. sunblossoms

 

> **[sun·blos·som](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Sunblossom) **  
>  _noun_
> 
> 1\. a flower that, while pretty, can be used to extract poison.

 

He finds Vii meditating in her quarters. Eyes shut and kneeling on the floor, back straight, chin lifted, and palms resting on her thighs. She’s surrounded by a halo of dim, golden light that Doc’s not entirely convinced is actually there.

 

She looks serene. A picture perfect Jedi, all drab brown robes in a drab grey room. So peaceful she’s almost lifeless.

 

It isn’t right.

 

Vii doesn’t flinch as Doc lowers himself to his knees in front of her. He’s sure she knows he’s there, she could probably feel him coming from halfway across the temple, but her eyes stay shut. If he was in the business of second-guessing himself, he might wonder if he should’ve waited for her to come to him, if all this meditation stuff is actually helping her.

 

But Doc is not in the business of second-guessing himself and, anyway, he’s already here. No point trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

 

“Hey Gorgeous,” he says, brushing a wisp of hair behind her ear. She doesn’t respond, but he isn’t expecting her to. He goes on. “I guess your Council meeting didn’t go so great. I’ve never heard of a six hour meeting that did. But I hated the thought of you sitting up here alone with your thoughts in this sad little room—seriously, what is the Jedi’s problem with a little _color_ —so here I am. And I brought you something.”

 

Doc plucks a few of the flowers from the bouquet, twisting off most of the stems, and starts to thread them into Vii’s hair, just behind her ear. The vibrant orange and yellow of the petals is striking against the rich darkness of her skin and the stark white of her hair. It’s bright and it’s alive and it’s everything he thinks of when he thinks of Vii. It’s everything the last few months haven’t been.

 

He leaves the rest of the bouquet on the floor between them. Like some kind of offering, or maybe a prayer. Vii still doesn’t move.

 

Doc presses a tender kiss to her forehead and sighs. “You do what you have to do, Beautiful. I just want you to know I’m here.”

 

And so he waits. He settles himself by the door, datapad in hand, and very carefully ignores the little chrono in the corner as he hate-reads all his favorite journals. Seconds turn to minutes turn to hours as they sit in silence, together.

  
It isn’t exactly nice. Nothing can really be nice with the weight of what happened on that damned Fortress still hanging between them, still unresolved. But it isn’t _not_ nice. It isn’t lonely. And when he looks up and finds a little smile curled on Vii’s lips, Doc starts to think that nice might not be so far out of reach.


	10. geraniums

Doc clenches the stem of the flower between his teeth and, as he starts working open the buttons of his shirt, reflects that this probably isn’t what the General had in mind when he offered Vii a secure commlink. And in her defense, he’s pretty sure Vii didn’t have this in mind either.

 

Luckily, she married a man as innovative as he is handsome. A man with the dedication and the genius to bring her the pleasure she deserves even with half a galaxy between them.

 

Doc drapes himself against the wall, one arm extended over his head to exaggerate the lean lines of his body, then tilts his chin this way and that, studying the effect in the mirror. It can be hard to find your best angle when all of them are this good, but he’s always liked a challenge.

 

He looks into the lens of the holocamera and imagines it’s Vii looking back. Imagines her cheeks flushed and her eye dark with desire. Imagines her teeth sinking into that full, rosy lip, teasing and tempting, her silken hair loose and begging to be tangled between his fingers. He imagines her body, so small and soft and warm, just barely hidden from him by a diaphanous shawl, glimmering gold in the dim light.

 

He imagines the feel of her skin beneath his fingers, imagines all of the little sounds she makes when he touches her, imagines the rise and fall of her chest as her breaths come faster and faster, the subtle sway of her breasts, the heat between her thighs--

 

The camera clicks, and Doc flips it around to inspect his work.

 

He lets out a low whistle, not too proud to admit he’s a little turned on by himself, and quickly sends it to Vii. It really is a shame he’s such a brilliant doctor, cause he would’ve made a killing doing this.

 

A response comes faster than he’s expecting. Bandwidth is a precious commodity in warzones, and it’s not like he thought Vii would’ve been waiting for a suggestive holo with her hand down her pants. He’s about to congratulate himself for excellent timing and better luck when the image she’s sent him finally finishes loading.

 

Vii is definitely… _in_ the holo. And in bed, if curled up on a bench on a troop transport counts as being in bed. She’s asleep anyway. Asleep surrounded by a full squad of armored commandos and one Junior Jedi, all grinning shit-eating grins around the combat knives clenched between their teeth, making fingerguns at the camera.

 

Secure, he reflects, does not necessarily mean private. But if they think they’re embarrassing him, they have a lot to learn. And he knows just the little doctor to teach them.

 

Doc drops his pants and takes another holo.

 

 _Click_.


	11. violets

The durasteel is cool beneath his fingers, hard and unyielding in a way her skin isn’t. He runs his thumb along the edge of the metal, savoring the dual sensation of hot and cold beneath his hungry hands.

 

This isn’t the first time he’s found strength in Vii where he was expecting to see tenderness, and maybe he’s just a fool in love, gone soft and poetical in his old age, but there’s some kind of metaphor in this woman who’s as much steel as she is flesh. Something about a gentle heart and an unbreakable spine.

 

Doc looks up, into the face that’s haunted him for six years’ worth of sleepless nights, into the face of the woman he could never bring himself to even consider letting go, and sees hesitation. Hesitation he hasn’t seen in her since the beginning, since the days when he was still trying to convince her it was okay to let herself be worshiped like this.

 

Six years is a long time, he supposes.

 

He holds her wide-eyed gaze as he drops his lips to the seam of her skin, smiling as he presses a tender kiss to the edge of her new leg. He savors the little gasp she gives. Sears the shape of her slow-spreading smile into his memory because he never wants to forget that. Never wants to forget the way she looks when she realizes how much he loves her.

 

Every piece of her.

 

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, pressing his lips to the metal again. And again. And again and again and again until he’s sure she’ll never doubt whether he means it again.


	12. roses (reprise)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one has the sexin' in it folks

His fingers trail featherlight along the curve of her waist, tracing the gentle crest of her hip and the cool, metallic slope of her thigh. Vii shivers beneath his touch, her skin flushed with want, but she is patient in her pleasure. She savors every sensation he can give—

 

Vii gasps, her fingers digging deep into his back as the door opens behind them.

 

“Um,” Theron says.

 

Doc looks down at Vii and finds her looking over his shoulder at Theron, her face pinched in what can only be called a pout. “Is this important?” She asks.

 

“Uh…”

 

“Because I’m kind of busy right now.” 

 

Theron doesn’t immediately answer, and Doc is stunned enough himself that he can’t really blame the guy. He was half-expecting to be crammed under the control panel but here he is, still upright  with Vii still in his arms, smiling up at him with the sexiest, most mischievous little smile… 

 

Her fingers loosen their grip on his back, caressing their way up his neck to lace through his hair, blunt nails scratching his scalp as she draws his head down to meet hers. He can still feel Theron’s shocked stare behind them as Vii slants her mouth over his, kissing him hungrily despite the audience. She’s all boldness and want and it’s making Doc weak in the knees.

 

The caress of her tongue draws a whimpering sound from him that would be embarrassing if he knew how to feel shame, but he doesn’t. All he knows to feel right now is desire. Lust and thrill and passion and delight. There’s something about Vii’s need, about the naked yearning in her eye, that has him electrified.

 

And maybe it’s just all that time apart, but Doc can’t remember ever wanting her more than he wants her right now. 

 

Distantly, he recognizes the sound of Theron’s voice, a choked “Nope,” and the hiss of the door sliding shut. The world narrows to Vii. To Vii’s tongue and Vii’s lips and Vii’s fingers tugging insistently at his hair. Vii’s body pressed against his. Vii’s soft breast in his hand. Vii’s thigh, cold and hard in his hand as he hooks it over his hip. Vii, slick and hot and tight around him. Vii gasping into his mouth.

 

Everything is Vii and, for the first time in six years, nothing hurts.


	13. forget-me-nots

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did you think that i forgot about you? (this doubles as an author's note and a chapter tagline) (kinda) (maybe) (from a certain point of view)
> 
>  
> 
> (this is mostly an author's note)

_6 years. 2208 days._

 

How many times does he kiss Vii in one day? Ten? Twenty? Thirty? How many kisses did he miss in 2208 days apart? How many thoughtless touches; how many sighs?

 

How much did six years cost them?

 

If he were a different sort of man, he would be angry. He would curse Valkorion or Vitiate or whatever the old evil fuck was calling himself for all the pain he caused. He would swear revenge on Arcann for stealing them from each other. He would be full of rage and bitterness and lie awake at night wondering what might have been. Wondering about what they lost.

 

(And if he’s being honest, some nights he does. His fingers brush the cool metal of a leg he remembers being flesh and blood and he asks himself if they would have a family right now if not for Zakuul.)

 

But Doc’s never been the sort to live in the past. What’s gone is gone and he’s not about to waste the time he has with Vii now mourning it. There’s worse things, he thinks, than spending his days trying to make up for all those missed kisses and sighs.

 

He presses another— _number 168 —_ to that ticklish spot behind her ear. Vii giggles his favorite of her giggles, all lightness and sweetness and warmth.

 

“You’re supposed to be taking a tour of your new workspace,” she says, “not of me.” But the hand toying with the downy hairs at the back of his neck suggests she really doesn’t mind.

 

Doc kisses her again, just a little lower this time. _169_. “But the desk never giggles when I kiss it, Gorgeous.” She laughs again, and he makes another mental tally mark— _170—_ as he puts a little teeth into the kiss he gives her earlobe.

 

“I knew I should’ve had Oggurobb show you around.”

 

Doc grins against her skin. “If you think I wouldn’t kiss a Hutt—“

 

Vii pulls back to give him a very serious look that’s a little ruined by the way she can’t stop smiling. “You’d better not be kissing any Hutts.”

 

“Trust me, Gorgeous.” Doc twines his fingers into the tightly bound strands of her hair, looking directly into her eye with what he knows is the stupidest, most lovesick smile he has. “There’s no one I want to kiss but you.”

 

“Good.” Vii smiles back at him with a smile every bit as dopey and adoring as his and Doc’s pretty sure his heart actually stops. He’s pretty sure this will be what kills him one day, and he can’t think of a better way to go.

 

He leans in and presses another kiss to her smiling lips. _171._

 

Just 2037 more and his debt will be paid.


	14. orange blossoms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the last flower in the bouquet and i'm sad about it folks

“Yes--oooh-- _yes_ . Right there. _Right there_.”

 

Vii tips her head back against the pillows and _moans_. It’s a thing of beauty, a sound long and low and shuddering, a sensual thing, drawn from the whole of her body. A sound that can only come from bone-deep satisfaction. A sound good enough to set any man’s veins to burning.

 

“Oh, Doc.” Her fingers dig into the upholstery of the sofa as her back tries to arch off her nest of pillows. “You have no idea how good this feels.”

 

Doc just laughs, driving his thumbs deeper into her swollen flesh. “I think I have some idea, Gorgeous.”

 

He thinks everyone on the ship has some idea; maybe everyone in this _sector_. Luckily, he happens to like when Vii lets him know he’s doing something right.

 

“You’re the best husband.”

 

“I know.”

 

She sighs again, blissful and frustrated all at once. “If I wasn’t aching in every single part of my body, I’d--”

 

“Trust me, Gorgeous, I _know_.” He’s been characterizing her appetite for sex as ‘robust’ on the charts, but that’s doing it a disservice. ‘Robust’ was the first trimester. It’s been nothing short of ‘insatiable’ since the start of the second.

 

Not that Doc’s complaining. He wasn’t exactly hurting for pleasure before, but there’s something about Vii that makes him greedy. And even when he can’t entirely _keep up_ \--that Jedi stamina is gonna be the death of him--he’s discovered all kinds of new ways to send Vii into rapture. He hopes their kids grow up to be the kind of people who will appreciate it when their father thanks them for improving his sex life. Not even born yet and they’re already doing things he never would have thought possible.

 

He moves his hands to the sole of Vii’s foot, delighting in the trembling little sigh she gives as he rubs deeper and deeper, his thumbs sweeping across her skin in a well-practiced motion. It’s good to know he has a career as a masseur to fall back on if he needs it. Ideally at one of the more exotic massage parlors, and with a client list of one.

 

“Mmmm,” Vii moans, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip in a way that really tests Doc’s commitment to generosity and selflessness. “I love you so much right now.”

 

Doc laughs, massaging his way up to the ball of her foot. “Just right now?”

 

And Vii lifts her head up, just high enough to look him in the eyes over the mountain of her pregnant belly. Her expression is scrunched and very serious and he knows what she’s about to say, has heard it a million times, knows it like he knows the sound of her voice and the taste of her lips, but the anticipation still sends his heart racing. Still sends a tremor down his spine.

 

“ _Always_ ,” she promises. “I love you _always_.”

 

And it washes over him, a palpable feeling like nothing he’s ever felt before. Like nothing else in the galaxy. He can _feel_ the way Vii loves him, bright and pure and hot. It tingles across his skin and sinks his bones, hot and liquid. It’s consuming and it’s blissful and he will die before he gives this up.

 

Doc swallows around an unsteady breath, savoring the feeling. Savoring this moment.

  
“I love you too, Gorgeous. _Always_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay this is really the end and now i am really sad. i thought i was sad before but i found out when i got all the way down here that i wasn't. i was proto-sad. this is the real sadness. i will miss this!!! i don't know why i'm being so emotional i write all the time and i'm gonna keep writing but i'm gonna miss this piece especially!!!!! i love you vii and i'm so glad i got to borrow you for a little while!!!!!
> 
> im gonna be over here crying now bye!!!!!!


End file.
